"If the United States is
to remain competitive on the world stage we must have well trained, innovative
scientists and engineers," she said. "We need them regardless of whether they
are male or female, but we certainly cannot afford to have 50 percent of the
population opt out."

The
Denton Award honors outstanding women who can serve as role models for future
female engineers.

Austin is internationally
recognized for her work in satellite and payload system acquisition, systems
engineering and system simulation. As president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, Austin
has guided the company's contributions to
national security space programs by conducting studies and supporting programs
such as NASA's human spaceflight, NOAA's weather satellite, and the Landsat system
of satellites.

According
to Dr. Renjeng Su, dean of Maseeh College, "recognizing the career
accomplishments and the proven leadership of Dr. Austin highlights the
importance of women in engineering. Overall, only about 20 percent of engineers
are women. We want to encourage more young women to pursue these degrees."

Austin
said she was drawn to math and problem solving at a young age because there was
a single right answer, eliminating
the opportunity for bias or discrimination in evaluations.

"We find that in about
third grade, women seem to opt out or they are getting subliminal messages that
this is not the right field for young women," she said. "I think it's important
that they realize that it's a foundational knowledge that you need no matter
what career you go into."

To
encourage more girls and young women to pursue science, technology, engineering
and math fields, educators and industry leaders need to talk more about how
innovative and fun the work can be, Austin said.

"We don't do a good job
in public relations about some of the career opportunities in science and
engineering, and the kinds of problems you can solve and the impact you can
have on society," Austin said. "I see lots of examples of phenomenal things
that we are able to do, but we don't get a spotlight on that so that students
say, 'Gee, when I grow up that's what I want to do.'"